What SEC football fan hasn't sat around complaining about the quality of a certain regional football network's broadcast. Who among us hasn't wondered why some games were picked up for television and others weren't?

Those days could be over.

For a price.

SEC officials, coaches and athletic directors are studying the feasibility (translation: profitability) of launching a league-specific television network. Contracts with ESPN, CBS and Jefferson Pi..., uh, Linconl Finan..., uh, Raycom are up for renewal and the SEC is considering taking a page from the Big 10 playbook and doing its own television broadcasting.

What that means, according to a story in The Birmingham News, is that major networks like ESPN would still get first-crack at games. Lower-tier games, typically found on Raycom, would instead move to the SEC network.

Launching the network would come at a cost, at least initially, the Birmingham News reported:

Neither the Big Ten Network nor the Mountain West Sports Network has turned a profit since they were launched. But the conferences are guaranteed their money. In the Big Ten, which has a 20-year contract with Fox, each school reportedly pockets an additional $7 million per year.

Football and basketball would obviously be the focal point of an SEC network. Non-revenue sports would also be broadcast, giving fans no shortage of options it would seem.

However, distribution has been a problem for the college conference networks and even the NFL Network. They all have fought public relations nightmares by showing games people want to watch but can't see.

Leagues have been unable to get their television channel into more households due to disputes with large cable providers over pricing and distribution. Cable companies have sought to put these networks on a sports tier that charges additional money to viewers.

The Big Ten Network is close to a deal with Comcast - the largest cable provider in the country - that would solve some problems. The deal would double the network's subscriber base in the eight-state Big Ten footprint and give the Big Ten coverage in nearly two of every three homes.

We'll take our games where we can get them. It would be nice if whoever broadcasts them could do better than the pre-1970s quality video like a certain regional crew.